Producer
Norman Granz
oversaw two
Porgy & Bess
projects. The first involved
Ella Fitzgerald
and
Louis Armstrong
, and came together during the autumn of 1957 with brassy big band and lush orchestral arrangements by
Russ Garcia
. This is the classic
Verve
, and it's been reissued many, many times. The second, recorded during the spring and summer of 1976 and issued by
RCA
, brought
Ray Charles
together with versatile British vocalist
Cleo Laine
, backed by an orchestra under the direction of
Frank DeVol
. A comparison of these two realizations bears fascinating fruit, particularly when the medleys of street vendors are played back to back. Those peasant songs, used in real life to purvey honey, strawberries, and crabs, were gathered and notated by
George Gershwin
and novelist
Du Bose Heyward
in 1934 during a visit to Folly Island, a small barrier island ten miles south of Charleston, SC, known today as Folly Beach. As Charleston Harbor had been one of the major ports during the importation of slaves from Africa, the waterfront was mostly populated by Gullahs, a reconstituted community that retained and preserved its ancestral cultures and languages to unusual degrees.
Gershwin
, who even learned to chant with the Gullah, absorbed the tonalities of the street cries he heard and wove them -- along with all of the other impressions stored within his sensitive mind -- into the fabric of his opera. What's really great about the
Ella
Louis
version is
, who handles each aria with disarming delicacy, clarion intensity, or usually a blend of both. Her take on
"Buzzard Song"
(sung 19 years later by
) is a thrilling example of this woman's intrinsic theatrical genius.
Pops
sounds like he really savored each duet, and his trumpet work -- not a whole lot of it, because this is not a trumpeter's opera -- is characteristically good as gold. This marvelous album stands quite well on its own, but will sound best when matched with the
/
version, especially the songs of
the Crab Man
, of
Peter the Honey Man
, and his wife,
Lily the Strawberry Woman
. ~ arwulf arwulf